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Friday, March 14, 2008

EDITORIAL: Russia, Out in the Cold

EDITORIAL

Russia, Out in the Cold


On Wednesday this week, the United States government signed agreements with Estonia and Latvia allowing their citizens to travel to the United States without visas, since their countries allow Americans to do the same and since they maintain friendly and cooperative relations with the world's only superpower. These two Baltic countries now join Czech Republic and Slovenia as former Soviet-bloc states that now have the warmest possible relations with the United States. Many more are sure to follow along this path (read the DOS standards here).

And Russia? Russia seems to desire exactly the opposite status, encouraging the U.S. to see Russia as an enemy nation against which it must struggle, along with the likes of Iran and Venezuela. This is perhaps not surprising since one of the most important reasons that countries like Estonia actively seek friendship with the U.S. is their stark terror of neo-Soviet Russian imperialism. The Putin regime has not only alienated the powerful United States, but almost every former Soviet bloc state as well. Russians seem blissfully unaware of the fact that even as they worry about NATO's designs on Russia, the former Soviet states are even more nervous about the dangers the Kremlin presents to them. It seems that the people of Russia could care less about that.

Last Saturday, an editorial in the Washington Post presciently called upon NATO to expedite the admission of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, and urged the Bush administration to press the issue at the upcoming summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania. The Post's editors argued:
Russia's repeated and heavy-handed maneuvers in and against Ukraine and Georgia in the past several years have dramatically demonstrated Moscow's ambition to destroy those countries' freedom and independence. Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent threat to target Ukraine with nuclear weapons should have been a wake-up call for any Western government that doubted whether Kiev needed defending.
As we report below Senator Richard Lugar, dean of U.S. foreign policy, issued a scathing denunciation of NATO for daring to invite Vladimir Putin to attend the summit. He stated: "To invite President Putin into this situation, I suspect, is to give him a meeting in which he intimidates [Ukraine and Georgia] further. In this context, this seems to be very dubious."

When the liberal Post and conservative Lugar agree, you know that America has reached consensus: Russia is a dangerous enemy that menaces the U.S. at every opportunity, and we must now awaken to the need to fight and win a new Cold War.

And let's be clear: These are not some rogue actions of monsters in the Kremlin who are simply victimizing the people of Russia as much as the West. That tired myth was busted long ago, when Russians voted overwhelmingly to hand absolute power to a proud KGB spy. The Ghanian student who was brutally stabbed and the Uzbek who was murdered in St. Petersburg this week weren't attacked by the government but by Russian citizens, while others turned their backs and did nothing. There will be no broad public outcry, no editorials of denunciation in leading newspapers or on TV.

The people of Russia are utterly complicit in all these acts, they are themselves part of the problem. Unless they immediately take responsibility, when these neo-Soviet chickens come home to roost, the people of Russia will have only themselves to blame.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

to what countries can russians travel without a visa????
it'd be interesting to see.
oh well----ingushetia and dagestan are beautiful this time of year. makhachkala is just like paris.

Anonymous said...

As Russia's power grows exponentially and the Anglo-American alliance stumbles on after its mortal wound - neocon-zionist dreams dashed. It is amusing to see your blog slander Russia in a jealous rage. I guess pointing the finger distracts from the unspeakable crimes committed by Anglo-American alliance. Russia is and will always be the most powerful country and its culture the world salvation. Russia by nature of its resources, geography and people will be the preeminent economic and military power. The American free market system was good while USA was only game in town but a credit economy dependent on economic growth will struggle if not fail in a resource constrained world. Anglo-American alliance is too geographically isolated and resource deprived to be a serious player in future. They just were not strong enough to finish Russia when they had the chance, now they resort to blogging! Truly hilarious and shows how far they have fallen.

Anonymous said...

Kim, I love you. Please, keep doing your wonderful job!

Did you see the latest ugly provocation of the FSB/KGB "Putin-ugend" lowlifes - making a lone protester into "illegal demonstration", and thus giving the Law-Thugs a reason to arrest a single picketer - documented!


http://grani-tv.ru/entries/136/

Can someone prominent as you or Robert Amsterdam put it on YouTube for everyone to see the real depth of Russian sordidness?

Thank you for being so ... just for being!

Israeli supporter.

akarlin said...

"to what countries can russians travel without a visa????"

35.

http://www.henleyglobal.com/visa_restrictions.htm

Despite the West's Russophobia.

Anonymous said...

The main criteria for admission to the visa waiver program (vwp) is proof that overstays will not exceed a certain level. This is done by examining current overstay rates and the rate at which visas are currently being refused on the basis of "failure to show intent not to immigrate." Russia will not be eligible for the vwp any time soon because so many of its citizens are constantly trying to illegally immigrate - unlike, for example, Estonia and Latvia.

I wonder why?

There is an interesting correlation between countries that are hostile to the U.S. and those whose citizens are trying in droves to flee to the U.S. But technically speaking, it is the fleeing, and not the hostility, that keeps these countries off the vwp.

Anonymous said...

Virtually every Latvian would like to move to Britain or Ireland among those who already have not. Russian-Americans are moving back in droves. Doing anything they can to leave abomination and degradation that is USA. I live in both countries so I see it firsthand.